A blog commenting on various aspects of the private collecting and trade in archaeological artefacts today and their effect on the archaeological record.

Monday, 3 December 2012

Three US Import Cases: Cultural Property Importers' Responsibilities

.Rick St Hilaire has a very useful post on his blog ('The Cultural Property Importer's Responsibility'
Monday, December 3, 2012 ) discussing the obligations of the US importers of cultural property to define the country of origin of the items which they wish to bring into the country. Definitely recommended reading. He discusses three cases:

What these cases demonstrate is that
cultural property importers who bring goods into the United States must
openly and accurately--to the best extent possible--disclose where
cultural objects come from as well as any other legally required
information. Arguments to the contrary will continue to
be rejected by legal officials. That is because importers are in the
best position to describe their products to customs officers, who often
must rely on importers' declarations to either permit or stop goods from
entering the country.

One of the cases he discusses is one that I was previously unaware of (an October 2012 Customs and Border Protection tariff classification ruling - N233501), and is a real cracker because it puts the coiney moanings firmly in their place. Who, though, can spot the problem?

5 comments:

I agree with St. Hilaire, that it is important for importers to provide accurate country of origin (manufacture) information as well as accurate valuations. I do wish, however, that he would consistently link to the legal documents he has cited-- otherwise one might suspect he is merely "spinning" what they say said or perhaps hoping that someone hires him to explain further.

With regard to the Customs ruling, I'd like to read it, but from what I can tell from St. Hilaire's post it does little more than say importers must provide place of minting as the country of origin. That, of course, is not the issue in the ACCG case-- it is the fact that State and Customs conflate country of origin (manufacture) with find spot under the CPIA. And no, I don't agree that it is a 'slight' burden for an importer to provide that information. And of course, whatever St. Hilaire may speculate as to the thinking of the individual jusges, of course, they did not rule on the merits at all-- which is what we asked them to do, but which they have refused to do based on the theory that this matter is not justiciable.

Let me repost this for clarity's sake. I was interrupted in the middle of posting it and so it went off with a few typos:

I agree with St. Hilaire, that it is important for importers to provide accurate country of origin (manufacture) information as well as accurate valuations. I do wish, however, that he would consistently link to the legal documents he has cited-- otherwise one might suspect he is merely "spinning" what they say or perhaps hoping that someone hires him to explain further.

With regard to the Customs ruling, I'd like to read it, but from what I can tell from St. Hilaire's post it does little more than say importers must provide place of minting as the country of origin. That, of course, is not the issue in the ACCG case-- it is the fact that State and Customs conflate country of origin (manufacture) with find spot under the CPIA. And no, I don't agree that it is a 'slight' burden for an importer to provide that information.

Whatever St. Hilaire may speculate as to the thinking of the individual jusges, they did not rule on the merits at all-- which is what we asked them to do, but which they have refused to do based on the theory that this matter is not justiciable as it touches on foreign relations.

That's a laugh, the ACCG complaining about somebody else "not linking" when Tompa, Sayles and Welsh are notorious for not linking to the statements they discuss on this blog and others (and whenever I send a comment to your sorry apologies for blogs pointing that out, you all ignore them - vide Sayles last three posts). That gives these bloggers the freedom to make things up.

I think instead of the puerile sniping we see on the "Cultural property Un-observer" blog throughout and since October 2012, it is a shame we did not learn about this ICE ruling from Coineylobbyist Tompa. the question is was Tompa too busy sniping to follow these developments (pretty fundamental one would have thought in his branch of work), or - like the failure of ACCG writers to link - is this an attempt to hide an awkward judegement from collectors, hoping to squeeze more cash out of them to fight a lost cause?

It seems to me that St Hilaire is indeed talking about the ACCG quarrel with whoever it is you are railing against.

I find St Hilaire to be a reliable source of information and legal interpretation, where others fall well short of the mark in my estimation.

Hmm. Not linking court documents that are publicly available but hard to find for the general public is a bit different than refusing to link rude blog posts. Anyway, your blog is easy enough for people who read this kind of material to find.

well, if they are too "rude" to link to, why does Sayles say I "endorse" his site, or encourage collectors to publish their collections? If I am rude, let your Executive Director not assert I say something else.

Although the blog may be easy to find, locating the place in it where I allegedly "endorse" WGS Antiquarian is a bit more challenging, not even I can find such a place.

I wonder from the style of his texts whether St Hilaire's blog is for the general public. Anyway, you'd have no problem finding this stuff, so why do we learn of this from St Hilaire and not cPO?

About Me

British archaeologist living and working in Warsaw, Poland. Since the early 1990s (or even longer) a primary interest has been research on artefact hunting and collecting and the market in portable antiquities in the international context and their effect on the archaeological record.

Abbreviations used in this blog

"coiney" - a term I use for private collector of dug up ancient coins, particularly a member of the Moneta-L forum or the ACCG

"heap-of-artefacts-on-a-table-collecting" the term rather speaks for itself, an accumulation of loose artefacts with no attempt to link each item with documented origins. Most often used to refer to metal detectorists (ice-cream tubs-full) and ancient coin collectors (Roman coins sold in aggregated bulk lots)